Seth Hanlon

Seth Hanlon, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama for economic policy, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where he focuses on federal tax and budget policy.

(Chris Kleponis/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy celebrates House passage of the Tax Act with other Republicans on November 16, 2017. This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . T he Trump era has been defined by corruption: secret hush money payoffs, financial entanglements with foreign governments, constant grifting, and abuse of power to reward allies and punish enemies. And the most significant legislation that President Trump has signed into law—the 2017 Tax Act—is best understood as another product of Washington’s culture of corruption under Republican control. The law showered massive new tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations at a time of rising inequality, record after-tax corporate profits, unmet domestic needs, and rising deficits. These tax cuts were deeply unpopular with the American people, but demanded by the Republican Party’s political donors. Given the basic mismatch between...